


Fever

by ReleasingTheKrakenIsMyFetish



Series: Ree [36]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Blood and Violence, Cliffhangers, Desperation, F/M, Fanfiction, Killing, Long Shot, Minor Injuries, Monsters, Multi, Panic, Pip-Boy, Serious Injuries, To Be Continued, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 10:21:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13738812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReleasingTheKrakenIsMyFetish/pseuds/ReleasingTheKrakenIsMyFetish
Summary: Ree's alone in the wilderness. She has yet to find Hancock and Valentine in order to warn them about the Institute, but first she needs to stay alive and be prepared to fight for her life. 2nd Long shot of Ree & Hancock (And Valentine).





	Fever

”Oh, you gave me a scare. I thought you were still in Goodneighbor.”

Nick turned around and saw Ellie standing at the bottom of the stairs, which led to their resting area. Ellie's hair was as neat and perfect as always – like she hadn't actually been sleeping, but hovering above the pillow. Only because she had wrapped herself in a blanket and only seemed to wear a thin shirt under it was Nick able to tell that she had still been fast asleep.

”My bad. I didn't notice how early it was and just stomped in. Any trouble while I was out?”

Ellie rubbed her face and Nick gallantly looked away when the blanket started slide down.

”Not really. The Bobrov brothers claim that someone from Colonial Taphouse is trying to poison their moonshine. Piper came by yesterday and brought her report, but for now there hasn't been any cases where people have mysteriously disappeared. Nick... hasn't it been awfully long time now?”

Nick lit a cigarette and dropped the lighter on his desk, which was now clean and papers in order. It always was, when Nick came back. No matter how he had left it when he set out to his journeys.

”I know what you're going to say. You can save it. I'm a detective... and this isn't my first missing person. I know how the clock works.”

Ellie opened her mouth again, but clamped it shut without uttering a word more. This wasn't like Nick, not at all. Nick was the compassionate type, but he always kept his feelings and work separate. Now it was like a dark cloud had surrounded him and it scared the hell out of her.

She forced a smile on her face.

”You're absolutely right. It's not my place to say anything of sorts. How was it in Goodneighbor?”

”Ellie,” Nick replied closing his eyes. ”I'm-”

The door bashed open and in came a pair of hands and feet, which belonged to a man who clearly didn't know what to do with his limbs. He was sweaty; his ratty, dark hair was like glued on his forehead and the T-shirt he wore under a Letterman's jacket was backwards.

”Nick, ya gotta come, quickly”, he spoke out of breath.

”Travis? What on earth has happened?”

Travis Miles's eyes shifted from the synth detective to barely dressed Ellie, and he blushed up to his ears. For a second he forgot to blink, but Nick's stern voice woke him up.

”Travis?”

”I- uh, I mean- Nick, I need ya to come with me. I think- I might have something you wanna hear.”

Nick grabbed his coat and followed Travis outside and to his metal trailer. Travis took a pair of headphones on his desk and offered them to Nick.

”The message is on a loop”, Travis explained. ”I dunno how long it has been playing, but no longer than four days.”

Nick placed the headphones on his ears and listened. Travis saw the synth's hands tightening around the ear pads before the synth took them off and threw them back to him.

”Go back and tell Ellie what the message said. Piper should be able to find Hancock. I'm leaving right now.”

…

_**Two days earlier** _

…

I woke up with a violent flinch, which made me hit my back on the tree behind me. For a confusing moment I thought the tree was someone's foot and I quickly got to all fours, grabbing the laser gun and lifting it up. When I realized I was threatening an innocent tree with a gun, I let out almost hysterical laugh before slapping my hand on my mouth.

The woods remained silent, except for couple of crows flying over me and cawing at my expense. I followed their flight with my gaze before taking a better look at my surroundings. It felt like early morning. The sun was hiding behind a thick fog veil and the air was nippy. My clothes were damp and made me shiver. I'd need to get myself dry soon.

Then it really hit me. I was out. Outside. In open air. The wind, despite making my skin freeze, felt wonderful. I wiped my eyes which had started to tear up again, and lifting my left arm I remembered the Pip-Boy. The device was silent, but it had a faintly glowing button on it.

Pressing the button woke it up and the screen showed me an overall review of my status. Apparently it could scan my body somehow. I had to snort when it stated that I was hurt and in need of Med-X or Stimpak.

_Thanks, but I don't have any. I couldn't find anything like that from the Institute and didn't really have time to look from the Parker's office, either._

My wounded shoulder was aching, but at least it didn't bleed. I had tied it with a torn strip of the jacket and that was pretty much the best I could do for it now.

I fiddled with the Pip-Boy and managed to bring out a map of. The screen kept flickering for some reason, making it hard to properly use it, but the little I saw from the map made me give out a shaky breath.

I knew where I was. Zooming out placed my location South-West from the old City. The highway wasn't too far from here. Scrolling the map I saw a bridge-

”Shit”, I hissed and slapped the thing on my wrist, when the screen once again started to glitch. ”Come on!”

Not really caring for my pleads the Pip-Boy flashed a green screen, then it shut itself down. Afraid that it had broken, I tried every single one of the buttons and nobs until some of the lights came alive again. The screen flashed up once more, but almost instantly there was an error code which was absolute gibberish to me.

”No, no no no no. Come on, I could really use you”, I tried, but it was useless.

Sighing, I carefully stood up. My feet felt wobbly from yesterday, but they kept me standing. I grabbed the gun and looked around.

_Okay. It's not so bad_ , I tried to give myself a pep talk, but my voice sounded a bit too shrill even inside my head.  _You know the right direction. Maybe. You have a working gun. You have food for a while. You're in way better shape than you thought you would be. It seems that nobody's following you. Now you just gotta keep yourself alive. Easy, right?_

”Not so sure about that”, I muttered and began walking to where I hoped was the right way.

As the sun rose higher the woods got more warmer and humid. I had to constantly keep an eye on my surroundings, and watch where I was going since it was easy to trip over a dead branches, roots and whatnot.

I had always loved to roam around in forests before the war – when I was a little girl I had been close with my dad, and he was the one who taught me to love the nature. Sometimes he'd take me out hiking and we would explore the woods near our home. It had been so much fun.

Now it was just pure survival. I stumbled on a half-eaten corpse of a two-headed radstag and gagged when the foul smell of rot ambushed me with the wind turning. It was missing most of its stomach, legs had been gnawed bare and the empty eye sockets were gaping at the sky. Shivering and hoping this wouldn't be my fate I kept on going.

After a long while I started to feel weak. I remembered that I hadn't eaten anything since yesterday's dinner, and dug out a protein bar from the small sack. Even thinking about food made my belly twist with nausea, but eventually I'd have to eat something or I would pass out.

I continued walking as I reluctantly nibbled on the bar, not wanting to stop. A fire had lit inside me ever since this morning – it burned my insides and rushed my legs to move faster. It muffled the pain on my shoulder, on every cut and bruise. I had to hurry. Not only because I wanted to get to John and Nick, but tell them and everyone about the last fortress of the Institute.

Seeing something just a stone's throw away to the West made me slow down. The forest was thinning out and behind the trees was a bright light shining at me. It took me a second to understand that it was a reflected sunshine. Steadily walking closer made my tiredness fade out.

The reflection came from a cracked windshield of a rusted down car. It was a road!

Squeezing the half-eaten protein bar in my other hand and the laser gun in the other, I took few quick steps closer. At the same moment I noticed movement only about a hundred feet away to my left. Turning my head to the direction made me gasp.

A pack of mole rats. Big ones. Maybe six or eight of them in total, and they were all looking at me. I swore, threw the snack bar away and started running. I heard them scurrying right behind me and screeching angrily.

Without looking I knew they'd outrun me, so my only options were either get somewhere they couldn't, or kill them all. If there would be just one or two of them... But a whole pack? I had almost full clip of fusion cells on the laser gun, but I'd have to use them sparingly since there was no way telling how long I would be out here on my own.

I reached the road and hastily climbed on top of the same car I had seen because of the reflection. The mole rats were almost instantly by the vehicle and with hissing and barking they tried to scramble up. With concern I noted that one of them looked different than the others; while rest of the mole rats were just pinkish albeit dirty, this one had visible dark abscesses and its drooling was excessive.

Balancing myself I got a better hold of the gun. The car wasn't as tall as I had hoped and it held the creatures at bay only barely. Alone, a mole rat couldn't reach high enough, but when they started piling up it wasn't long when one of them managed to climb on the hood. The beady, small eyes locked on me and it snarled.

I got a clean shot at it, and the pink body flew off landing on the cracked asphalt with only half of its head left. Another one was already on top of the hood and jumped at my feet. I kicked as hard as I could and hit it on its belly. It fell on its side and slid further on the cowl. Before it could get up the deadly blue light flashed again. This time the same happened as with Dr. Parker, and after glowing for a second the body collapsed and turned into dust.

There was no time to come up a plan – everything happened so fast. When I killed one, a new comrade of the fallen beast was already getting too close. I didn't notice that the sickly looking one had gone around, until I was hit with force. I nearly stumbled down, but somehow kept myself standing up.

At first I didn't actually feel pain. All I knew was that suddenly something heavy clung on my left arm, clamped around just above the wrist. The big, yellowish teeth bit all the way to the bone.

An inhuman shout rose from my throat and with the laser gun I started hammering the giant rodent's wrinkle-skinned head. The agonizing pain made it harder to think and all I wanted was just to get the beast open its jaws. Beating it didn't have any effect. With everything I had I focused my mind and shoved the gun against its neck.

Firing the laser gun yanked the mole rat violently away from me and the teeth pulled out from my flesh. There was a lot of blood, but no time to pay attention to that. There were still five of them left.

One by one they attacked, some of them trying to jump straight at me and some by slowly climbing up to get closer. It was now harder to aim when my left arm was so badly injured, but with unexplained luck I missed only couple of times.

When the last of the mole rats slid down the car leaving a bloody trail after it, I stood on the roof and fought to get enough of air inside my lungs. I felt light-headed and my arms were shaking. Taking a quick look around me I didn't see anything or anyone moving on the road or in the woods. My wild eyes were darting here and there, until they stuck on my arm.

It was covered with blood and even more was flowing from the deep bite marks.

”Shit”, I grunted with raspy voice and dropped on my knees.

Quickly taking off the jacket I tore the whole sleeve off and tightly bound the arm with it. The fabric turned deep red, but at least it slowed down the bleeding. I had no idea how much I had already lost, but moreover I grew worried when I realized that it had been the mole rat with abscesses that had bit me. But for now stopping the bleeding was all I could do and hope for the best.

The road stayed silent and I climbed down from the car roof. I had to lean on the vehicle before taking any steps, since my vision darkened for a brief moment. I felt like the ground would vanish under my feet at any second, but after few minutes the asphalt was solid again.

I squeezed the laser gun with my healthy hand and walked past the mole rats bodies to what I assumed was the North-East. Knowing that staying on the road made me more open for more attacks I tried to keep myself alert. As dangerous as it was, it was also my best shot finding people. Travellers and merchants. Maybe get some more information, better directions, Stimpaks.

As the first drops turned quickly into a heavy, drenching rain I huddled my feet inside the little shelter of mine, which I had built with broken doors and pieces of furniture. The evening had come with the clear skies starting to gather some ominous clouds, and luckily I had seen some demolished houses by the road – practically they were just lonely walls standing here and there, with scattered furniture and trash around them.

After checking the surroundings and making sure I was the only living thing there I quickly dragged some boards and pieces of tables together. With them I built a small shelter, just spacious enough for me to crawl in and hopefully not get too wet. When the shelter was finished it was already dark and hazy in the way that storm clouds only could do. The feeling of wrongness when you know it should still be light outside, but when you look around it's almost eerily dark with certain yellowish hue.

Trying to forget the aching pain on my arm I fiddled with the Pip-Boy and the small, green monitor shone at me. It was definitely busted, since the screen flickered and the OS seemed to be very unstable.

I felt feverish. My skin had started to get hot and the air around me seemed to drop in temperature, though it was probably because of the fever.

_It's nothing. It's normal getting fever after so much stress and blood loss._

Suddenly the Pip-Boy made an abrupt yelp and I nearly had an heart attack.

”...you treacherous goon! Your scheme will never work, for the Silver Shroud will surely come after you”, a female's voice came through, crackling but audible.

”Ha ha! What a laugh! My sweet Mistress, this time even he can't stop us! Just sit back and watch; Shroud will be a dead man as soon as he enters the warehouse”, answered a mocking voice of a male. 

There was a short jingle, after which another male voice announced that the next episode of Silver Shroud's new adventures would be broadcasted in the next week.

”You're listening to WRVR, the most exciting radio station of the Commonwealth. Remember, that our competition for the best new play script is still running! If you think that your script should be played by our wonderful actors and actresses, then be sure to stop by and bring the script to our station...”

My skin went all prickly when the man continued with the directions and I hastily switched on the map mode. Praying that the device would stay on I scanned through the nearby area. As I had predicted the Pip-Boy soon went black, but I had seen enough.

There was a radio station, and it was close. I'd be bound to come across it if I'd continue following the road.

I hugged the gun on my lap and anxiously waited for the morning to come. My lids were getting heavier and I was shaking, but still I somehow fell through the consciousness into the abyss waiting below.

In the dream I was running through the woods and blue lasers shot past me from behind. The pursuers never caught me, but they always were only one or two steps away. My heart was beating like crazy and over everything I dreaded of tripping over something. Because I knew it was just the matter of time when I would do so.

”No”, I blurted out loud and hit the wall of my little shelter with the injured arm. The sharp pain made me hiss and groan.

It was still dark outside, but the rain had stopped and the clock on the Pip-Boy told me it was barely morning. But it took me a good while to make out what the faintly glowing numbers were. My vision stubbornly wanted me to see everything double.

Bad vision was the smallest of my worries, though. The bandage on my arm was soaked with blood. When I peeked under it I had to bite the inside of my cheek to not throw up – the edges of the wound had turned dark and the wound itself oozed the mix of puss and blood. I had thought I'd have more time, but it didn't look like it.

Even crawling out of the box was tricky. All I wanted to do was stay still, because every time I moved my head it was like the world wanted to move exactly the other way around. I was dizzy, nauseous and the pain on the arm was getting worse.

I knew that if I'd decide to lay there, I'd die. The infection would be the likely reason, but the smell of blood would surely attract something to me sooner or later. I had no other options but to keep moving my legs.

The dawn creeped further and the still pale sun began rising above the treetops, but I only partially noticed it. To me, everything looked as dark as it had been, even before the sun. Sometimes the world spun around me like a merry-go-round, sometimes it was just two roads before me and I walked on both of them at the same time.

I tried to keep the gun ready, but after a while I just couldn't do it. Every inch of my strength went into walking straight and holding on to the gun, which now dangled off my healthy hand and looked much as useful on me as a stick.

I did trip over. I did fall on the wet asphalt on all of my fours, numerous times. This time I also threw up and spat the gastric acidity burning my mouth. I had lost the bag with all my food and water – I don't know how and where, but suddenly I just didn't have it on me anymore.

Dark figures ran past me and around me. Since they didn't attack me, it's a safe bet to say they were just hallucinations. I shook my head and focused my gaze.

There was a building. It reminded more of a bunker than an actual house and it had a red and white mast on top of it.

Nearly biting through my cheek I stood up and started taking wobbly, uneven steps to the broadcast station. Walking closer made the outlines sharper and I could see someone standing just outside the orange front door. When they spotted me I saw them jolt back.

”Shit, I almost peed myself! For a second I thought you were a feral. Did you want to submit your script?” She threw away a cigarette butt, after which she took a closer look at me and drew a sharp breath. ”My, you're... Are you all right?”

I dropped the gun and took few steps further. She saw that I was about to fall down and hurried to grab my arms, which made me to cry in pain.

”Oh Christ”, she sputtered and turned her head to call out someone named George, but nobody came out. ”Right, they're recording the play and can't hear. Come on, let's get you inside...”

With her help we stumbled inside the station's reception area and I was laid down on a sofa.

”Just wait here, I'll go get George and Rex”, the woman told me and left the room for couple of minutes, after which I heard her returning with two sets of heavier foot steps.

”...why I keep telling you to keep your eyes open when you go outside”, a man's voice filled the room with the door opening. I thought it was vaguely familiar, until I remembered the radio. It was the announcer.

”Miss? You awake? Shit, she looks bad. Rex, did we have any chems back there?”

”I think we have some Med-X. I was going to visit Egret Tours Marina later this week and refill our first aid kit, but-”

”Okay, just get it for me, now. Miss?”

I pried my eyes open and found a man's face hovering above mine.

”I need... I need to get to Diamond City”, I whispered through a throat that was slowly swelling up. ”I need to find John Hancock... and Nick Valentine.”

”Valentine? Isn't that the synth detective who brought Rex back?” The woman said behind the man, who must have been George.

”Yeah, it was. Listen miss, you're in a bad shape. I don't know what happened to you, but I can smell the infection and it looks like you've lost blood. We can ease the pain, but that's about it. There's a settlement just across the bridge and there's a doctor who can help you, so after we've given you the pain killers-”

”Please”, I interrupted him and curled my fingers around his wrist. ”It's important. I need to go to Diamond City.”

”You're in no shape getting that far as you are now. Rex, weren't you buddies with that guy who runs the Diamond City Radio? Trevor?”

The man called Rex had come back in the room and handed a syringe of Med-X to George, who quickly emptied it on my right shoulder.

”Travis, yes. I guess I could send him a voice message and ask him to pass it on to Mr. Valentine. What's your name, miss?”

”Ree”, I breathed out and relaxed my muscles when the chem smoothed the pain. ”My name is Ree.”

”Okay Ree, Rex will record a message to Travis and after that we're taking you to the settlement. Anne, you okay here by yourself for a short while?”

The Med-X muffled the pain, but now I became aware how high my fever was. I began to fear that it was too late _._

”The recording is now playing on loop”, Rex returned and helped George to lift me up. ”We have a radio connection with Travis, but there's never saying when he listens to our private channel. Might be today, might be the day after tomorrow. Right now we should hurry and get you to the doctor.”

I was too tired to answer. I hanged between the men and did my best to move my legs with their pace so I wouldn't be too much of a burden.

I had done my best. I had found people who were helping me and had sent a word to Diamond City. I just hoped I would still be alive when Nick got message.

 


End file.
